Fire, Danger, Love
by atrfla
Summary: Prisoner 840381- aka Scarlett Love- is being transferred to a maximum-security prison… or so she thought. When she finds out that her father sent the Seven on their quest to find her, the missing piece of their puzzle to defeat Gaea, she's completely surprised. Then again, who wouldn't be? Rated T for a bit of romance and some violence. (This has been almost completely rewritten!)
1. Chapter 1

"Prisoner 840381!"

My head snapped up. Standing outside of my cell were three guards- all female, of course. With my reputation, there was no way they were sending any males to guard _me_. The government had made that mistake three times already.

"Stand up and put your hands in front of you," the burliest guard ordered. "You are being moved."

I sighed, rolled my eyes, and did what they asked. "Really? What is this, number twelve? And do you really have to do that?" This as the mousiest, smallest guard unlocked the cell and snapped a pair of handcuffs around my wrists.

"Silence, Prisoner 840381," the middle guard commanded as the burliest guard grabbed my shoulders. "You are being transferred to a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. If you cause any trouble, your guards will Tase you. You have been warned."

With that, the other two guards led me out of my cell and through the twisting maze of cells. Other criminals, ones who had gone insane, reached for my ankles through the bars, begging for help. I ignored them. I'd seen firsthand what happened to people who tried to help them.

We made it to the jail lobby- really, what jail needs a lobby?- and I looked around for my new (I put as much sarcasm as I could into the next words of my thought) _maximum-security_ guards. The biggest group of people were a group of teenagers standing in the corner, arms crossed. They practically radiated power. But they weren't my guards, obviously. In fact, no one in the nearly-empty lobby even _resembled_ maximum-security guards.

But the middle guard motioned to the group of teenagers. "Come and get her."

The teenagers that had been sitting stood, and they started to advance upon me.

"Uh, guys?" I said to the mousier, smaller guard out of the side of my mouth, twisting my head to the side. "I'm not complaining or anything, but I don't think these are my guards..."

"Of course they are. Be quiet," she snapped in reply.

I scanned the group. Three boys, two girls. I allowed myself a small smile. _Oh, this will be a piece of cake_. I didn't plan to go to wherever they were taking me. Sending boys, whoever had sent these motley teens? Their mistake.

The tallest boy, a buff Chinese with a shaved head, stepped forward and grabbed my handcuffs. The rest- a smaller raven-haired boy; a tall, muscled blond dude; a girl with curly brown hair and mocha skin; and a brunette girl- surrounded me. I smiled as I was marched out of the building. _Too easy._

As soon as we were out of sight of the jail, I reached out with my mind. The three boys' minds were all determined, but all too easy to manipulate. I sent instructions to their brains as soon as they were under my control, simple ones_._ To one, I sent instructions that were a little more complicated, but I was sure he could handle it.

I looked at the brunette girl to my left. "I don't suppose you're going to let me go, then?"

She looked at me like I was dumb. "_No_."

I shrugged and smirked. "Okay, your choice. We'll go with the hard way. Boys, _now_."

The three boys sprang into action. The blonde boy went for the brunette girl, and the Chinese one attacked the girl with dark skin and curly hair. The smaller black-haired boy drew his knife and chopped through my handcuffs with a few quick strokes, leaving my fancy metal bracelets in pieces on the ground.

I bowed sarcastically to the boy. "Why, thank you." Then I started to walk away, but before I could, someone tackled me from behind, sending me down. As soon as my hands touched the ground, I pushed up, using the momentum to flip in the air and send a punch at my attacker.

The brunette girl caught my fist out of the air and pinned both of my arms to the ground with one hand. As she was kneeling on my legs, this left me pretty much helpless. As I struggled to get free of her grip, she drew _her _knife and held it by the blade. While ideas ran through my head to get her to chop her hand off, she got real close to my face and growled, "Scarlett Love, daughter of Eros, you made me attack my boyfriend. _No one_ makes me attack my boyfriend."

I barely had time to work up a mouthful of spit and let it loose into her face before she brought the handle of her knife down on my head, and I went out like a light.

**I realized that in the time frame that this is supposed to be happening during, Annabeth and Percy are in Tartarus. So I've rewritten them out of Chapters 1 and 2. During these two chapters, it might seem that Piper or Hazel says something a bit out-of-character. That's because Annabeth or Percy was supposed to say their line, so I'm sorry about that. It'll get better after Chapter 3, I promise.**

**~atrfla**


	2. Chapter 2

When I woke up, I didn't open my eyes. First, I cast my senses out around the room. No one was in the room with me, but there was someone guarding the door. A girl.

After a few moments, I cracked one eye open. Sight confirmed that the room was empty, but I was tied up in a bed in the center of the room. Judging by the squeaky clean floor, either this was someone else's room or it was cleaned regularly. A bunch of teenagers? My guess was that it was someone's room.

As I was enjoying the rare solitude, I felt another girl approach, and heard whispers.

"Is she awake?"

"I don't know. She mumble mumble mumble a while ago, so she mumble."

"I have mumble. Mumble mumble when I go in."

The doorknob started to turn, but the first voice said, "Hazel, is there any mumble mumble mumble have the boys mumble mumble?"

"She's a child of Eros. She can mumble mumble using her mumble."

Then the door opened, and I caught a glimpse of the African-American girl standing outside the hallway looking confused before the brunette chick who'd knocked me out barged in carrying a tray. She noticed I was awake when I couldn't close my eyes fast enough. Pouncing, she pried one of my eyes open. "Oh, no. Don't go to sleep. There'll be food for you whether you like it or not."

"Then untie me," I answered.

She shook her head, setting the tray down on a nearby nightstand. There was a slice of meat, probably beef, and a bowl of peas and a glass of orange juice for my meal. It must be admitted that it looked better than the prison food. "No way. You'll just attack me again and make a run for it."

"Oh, I wouldn't," I assured her. _I'd eat first and then attack you and make a run for it. _

She must have believed me, because she took out her knife- the very same knife she'd used to knock me out, I noted- and cut the ropes that bound my hands, but not my legs. She then sheathed it in a scabbard hanging from her belt. I memorized the location so I could grab it later, but before I could do anything drastic, she placed the heavy metal tray in my lap.

_Ah. _I looked over the food- no, not the food, the metal tray. It was heavy and solid and would make an excellent weapon.

"Eat," the girl ordered.

The African-American girl appeared in the doorway. "Piper? Leo's here. He says he needs to familiarize Buford with the new girl?"

The brunette- Piper- leapt up from the bed just as I took my first bite of peas. "_What?_ Hazel, he was supposed to stay on deck until we said it was safe to let the boys near her!"

_A boy? _I perked up. _Perfect._

The African-American girl- Hazel- shrugged. "Apparently Buford will make the ship malfunction if he detects a new person on board and isn't familiarized with it in… I think it was two days."

"Well, she's only been on board for two _hours_! There's plenty of time for that later."

Hazel shrugged. "He says he wants to do it now and that he isn't afraid."

Piper murmured something under her breath, then looked like she regretted saying it. It sounded like a foreign language, so I was surprised I understood it. _Honestly, Tartarus would be better than this._

What the hell was Tartarus?

"Tell him to come in," Piper ordered. She wheeled on me. "And _you_, Scarlett- none of your mind control."

"Maybe it would be best to knock her out?" Hazel suggested quietly.

I rolled my eyes. "No knocking me out, please. I won't control the boy, if that's what you're scared of." _At least, not until Buford- whoever he is- has "familiarized" with me. Then I'll have control of the whole… did they say _ship_?_

And then the boy they called Leo entered the room.

**I realized that in the time frame that this is supposed to be happening during, Annabeth and Percy are in Tartarus. So I've rewritten them out of Chapters 1 and 2. During these two chapters, it might seem that Piper or Hazel says something a bit out-of-character. That's because Annabeth or Percy was supposed to say their line, so I'm sorry about that. It'll get better after Chapter 3, I promise.**

**~atrfla**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! I know I haven't posted in a loooooooong time, but I'm working on it. Sound good? Awesome. And I rewrote chapters 1 and 2 because I forgot Annabeth and Percy were in Tartarus when the demigods met Cupid. Go back and read the author's note on chapter 1 if you want more details.**

**Also, I have favors to ask of any Potterheads out there. I have a series called the "Salinger Year" series, and it follows an OC- Aly Salinger- through her seven years at Hogwarts. Her school years are about as chaotic as those of Harry himself. Anyway, I'd like you to read it- "Fifth Year" is the first one, followed by "Fourth Year". And when you're all caught up on that, I have great news for you! If you loved it, there's a forum I made called the Salinger Year Forum. The link is in Chapter 7 of Fourth Year, but if that doesn't work just PM me and I'll send it to you, or you could always look it up under Forums. There, you can ask questions, speculate, criticize or just talk about the Salinger Year series- and there may be an RPG coming too where you can role-play as your favorite character (first come, first served)!**

**Just wanted to let you guys know. All right! Read on!**

He had curly hair as dark as my hair was red. His brown eyes were laughing and bright, and his skin was the color of caramel. He just looked so _happy_, so _good_, so _fun_\- I resolved never to control him. Most boys were messes, crazy pools of darkness and deceit who fell apart with a single flick of my (mental) wrist. But this boy… I could tell already that he was different, that he _wasn't _a mess inside, that he would be difficult to control even if I wanted with all my might to control him. So I decided I wouldn't even try.

And let me tell you, I had only ever resolved never to control a boy _once._

But I would never think about Alexander again.

"The Leo-nator has arrived!" he announced in a cheery voice, stepping out of the doorway and striking a pose. A tool belt jangled around his waist, and he wore an olive green button-down and jeans. Behind him clattered something that looked a table. But… it was _moving_.

"What is _that?_" I asked, as sharply as I could through my last bite of peas.

Hazel glanced over at him. "That's Leo."

I rolled my eyes at her with as much sarcasm as I could muster. "Not what I meant. The _table_. You know, the one that's moving? On its _own?_"

Piper laughed a little. She was really pretty, even though her hair was messier than mine after I slept, and I found jealousy tearing at my heart. I'd never been all that pretty, especially in the idiotic prison jumpsuits that I'd worn for three years of my life after first being arrested at twelve. In fact, I realized I was wearing one that very instant, and I tensed. The first thing I would do after escaping- because if I couldn't control this _Leo _boy, then I would have to escape with only the other boys for help, and there was no way I was taking over a ship that had a boy I wouldn't control on it- was get some new clothes. Or maybe they had some here that I could snag on the way out.

_Of course_, I thought, staring at Piper with narrowed eyes, _I can always _make _a boy think I'm pretty. But it's just no fun that way._

"That's Buford the table," Piper said after laughing herself out. "He helps Leo run the ship."

"What ship?" I snapped, a headache starting to form at my temples. "And how does a table do anything?"

Piper sighed, as if she'd had to explain whatever she was going to say many times before. "Scarlett, have you heard of Greek mythology?"

"Or Roman," Hazel murmured.

"Who hasn't?" I shot back. In truth, I'd only ever heard a little bit of Greek mythology- that there were a lot of gods and that the main one was named Zeus. At one juvenile prison that I'd only been at for a couple of weeks when I was almost fourteen, the local library donated books to the juvie. I had opted for sappy romance novels- my one weakness when it came to literary material- even though I was dyslexic and could barely read, but the girl who lived in the mini-cell across from mine had spent hours on end chattering on about some series called the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I'd learned a bit about Greek mythology from her babbling, even though I hated it when she talked or stayed up past three in the morning reading with a flashlight one of the guards had specifically given her. I wondered where she was now. Had she been released?

Anyway, Piper looked surprised. "How much do you know?"

"Probably more than you," I retorted. I already didn't like her, but the fact that she thought I was an imbecile made me hate her even more.

"Name the twelve Olympians," Hazel challenged from closer to the door.

I stretched my arms, mentally naming them but not really wanting to speak. _Um, Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, Hades… wasn't there one who got drunk all the time? And wasn't there a goddess of love? Heh. She couldn't match me if she tried._ "Don't really want to," I said lazily as I sipped my orange juice.

Piper started to sigh, but Hazel cleared her throat. "Uh… Piper, I'm sure Leo has stuff to do, so… could you speed it up so he and Buford can get back to making sure we don't fall from the sky?"

_A ship. In the _sky? I made a mental note that either these kids were 1) whack jobs or 2) aliens. Neither one seemed fun.

Piper heaved yet _another _sigh- did she have bigger lungs than the rest of the human race?- before seemingly calming down and looking me straight in the eyes. Hers seemed to be constantly changing, and I'm sure mine were as dark as ever. Some people even said, when I wasn't in jail and people actually _talked _to me like I was a human _being_, that they couldn't distinguish my iris and pupil because they were both as black as night.

"All those myths," Hazel told me slowly, "are true. We-" she gestured around the room, first at Piper, then at Leo and finally at herself- "are the children of the gods and goddesses in those myths."

I snorted. _I was right. These kids _are _nut jobs._

"Piper," Hazel continued, pointing at Piper, "is a daughter of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, and a human named Tristan McLean."

"Tristan McLean? Yeah, right," I taunted, cocking an eyebrow. "Isn't he famous or somethin'?" But deep in the far recesses of my memory, I vaguely remembered Tristan McLean- an actor who my mother had loved before she died- having a daughter who was about my age, and I was pretty sure her name had been Piper. I shrugged it off. _She's probably not even named Piper. She's probably living under some kind of alias. _

Piper- if that was even her name- blushed. "It's true."

"Leo," Hazel said, ignoring me, "is a son of Hephaestus, the god of the forge and-"

"_Awesomeness,_" Leo interrupted, striking yet another pose. I almost laughed without meaning to, but managed to stop myself. More like the god of _ridiculousness _or _phony stories._

"And _metalworking_," Hazel restarted, "as well as a human woman named Esperanza Valdez."

I shrugged. "Never heard of her." Then I silently cursed Hazel because the second she had said Leo's (apparent) mother's name, sadness had risen into his face and overtaken the happy, joyful boy he seemed to have been seconds before.

"Finally," Hazel finished, "I'm the daughter of Pluto. God of death and riches. He's Roman, but those gods are real too. There are even two separate camps that-"

I faux-yawned. "What does this have to do with me?" I asked in my most bored voice, nibbling daintily on the meat as if I wasn't hungry even though my stomach was rumbling with appetite.

"You're one of us," Piper said with a smile.

Buford creaked behind Leo. _Wait. I can't believe I'm calling a table by a name._

"Uh huh," I mumbled, unconvinced.

"It's true," Piper insisted. "Your father sent us to find you."

Instantly, I tensed. "My father is a no-good crackpot who got himself killed when I wasn't even born yet," I hissed through a clenched jaw.

Leo shook his head. "Nah, he's alive. And from what Jason said, he _might _be a no-good crackpot, but-"

"_Leo!_" both Hazel and Piper shouted at him.

Piper turned back to me. "It's true, Scarlett. Your father _is _alive. He's a god."

I snorted yet again. "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight…" But at once it all made sense. My father not being there. The look on my mother's face whenever she talked of him- it should've been hate, but instead it was pure love. She'd _known _and she'd never so much as mentioned it to me. (_Oh, by the way, Scar, your father's a god. Thought you should know!_) The way I could reach into a boy's mind and bend him to my will, the way all the boys loved me even when they hated me, why my mother always told me to stay away from boys and not control them, the way my temper could only be described as _fiery_\- that thing I could do was a godly power, probably handed down from my father. But… last I'd checked, there wasn't a god of love, and the closest out of all the gods was Piper's mom, goddess of beauty. (I guessed that girl in the cell across the way rubbed off on me more than I'd thought she had.) And hey, if these people had a table that could move on its own, then why the hell not have a flying ship?

"Oh my God," I whispered. "You're right."

Piper sat back with a smile on her face. I could imagine her thoughts, which were probably something like _Damn right I am. _Actually, no. She didn't seem like the type to swear all that much.

Thinking back to when I'd first met these people, outside of the jail in- was it Houston or Miami? I'd lost track of where I was somewhere around the fourth or fifth prison. Anyway, outside of my latest juvenile delinquent center, the blonde girl had pinned me down and said something about "daughter of"... errors? That sounded about right for a girl with such a screwed-up life as mine.

"Who did you say my father was?" I managed.

"Eros," Leo said. "God of love. Son of Aphrodite."

"Minion of Aphrodite," Piper added.

"Minion?" I spluttered.

Piper seemed to be trying to keep herself from bursting out laughing, something I both appreciated and hated.

"Does that make her Piper's… niece?" Leo guessed. "Aw, that's just weird."

"Shut up, Leo," Hazel, Piper and I all said at the same time. I hid a smile. Maybe I'd like these people better than I thought I would.

"_Anyway_," Piper continued, "we can talk more about this later. Leo, do your thing."

Leo came further into the room, the walking table- _heck, why not just call him Buford?_\- _Buford _following behind him.

"Buford, syringe," Leo ordered.

I tensed. "Buford _what _now?"

"Don't worry," he assured me. "It won't hurt. Not compared to getting thrown into-" His face saddened. "Never mind."

I allowed him to prick my finger with the syringe. It did hurt a little bit, and I could feel my skin heating up. Then I had to let Buford the table "scan" me, whatever that was, and touch my arm. It was very weird, but I cooperated.

Finally Leo and his table were done, and the former backed out of the room with the latter following. In parting, he gave a cheery wave and said, "Now, since I have very _important _stuff to do as supreme commander of this spankin' hot war machine, I have to go. Oh, and Piper, Hazel, Jason said there's a meeting in half an hour. Ciao!" And he was gone.

**Please don't forget to read, review, and possibly go check out the Salinger Year series and its forum! Thanks again!**

**~atrfla**


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